Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Ana Jakopec
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
This study was conducted to explore the relationship between different leadership styles and
organizational commitment. Furthermore, it attempts to clarify the role of justice perceptions and
job satisfaction as mediators of the relationship between (active and passive/avoiding) leadership
styles and organizational commitment. The structural equations modeling was used to analyze data
collected from a sample of participants recruited from different organizations. The results have
indicated that perceived supervisors active leadership styles are positively linked, and have both,
direct and indirect effects on employees' organizational commitment. Perceived passive/avoiding
leadership styles do not have any effect on organizational justice, job satisfaction and
organizational commitment. Employees' job satisfaction depends directly on the level of
organizational justice being perceived by the employees. Job satisfaction also significantly
contributes to organizational commitment. Implications of the results concerning job and
organizational attitudes are discussed, and suggestions for managing human resources are given.
Keywords: active leadership style, passive/avoiding leadership style, organizational justice, job
satisfaction, organizational commitment
Introduction
Productivity and performance of an organization depends upon the
organizational commitment of its employees (Bushra, Usman, & Naveed, 2011).
Because leadership has been proposed as one of the most decisive factors
contributing to the attitudes of employees toward their organization (Bass, Avolio,
Jung, & Berson, 2003), it is probably among the most prominent predictors of
organizational commitment. Findings of Ibrahim, Nurzahit, and Trker (2010)
suggest that leadership has a substantial incremental effect on organizational
commitment.
Prior research reported also the significant relationship between organizational
justice and job satisfaction mutually and with factors mentioned above, whereas
few of them looked into the mediator role of organizational justice and job
satisfaction for the association between those factors (e.g., Ambrose, Hess, &
Ganesan, 2007; Bakhshi, Kumar, & Rani, 2009; Crow, Lee, & Joo, 2012).
Leadership Style
Leadership is defined as a process of interaction between leaders and
followers in which leader attempts to influence followers in order to achieve a
common goal (Yukl, 2008). One of the "new-leadership" theories has been called
the "full-range leadership theory" (FRLT) proposed by Bass and Avolio (1994).
The constructs comprising the FRLT denote three typologies of leadership
behavior: transformational, transactional and nontransactional laissez-faire
leadership, which are represented by nine distinct factors (Antonakis, Avolio, &
Sivasubramaniam, 2003).
Transformational Leadership (TF). Transformational leaders motivate others
to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought
possible (Bass & Avolio, 1994). Transformational leadership is theorized to
comprise the following factors: (1) idealized influence, which includes behaviors
like sacrificing for the sake of the group, demonstrating high ethical standards and
setting a personal example (Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003); (2) inspirational
motivation, which entails the creation and presentation of an attractive vision of the
future, use of symbols and emotional arguments, and the demonstration of
optimism and enthusiasm (Kark et al., 2003); (3) intellectual stimulation is the
leader's ability to challenge followers to solve problems by encouraging followers
to look into problems in new ways and by requiring new solutions, the leader
pushes them to perform beyond what they previously considered possible; and (4)
individual consideration, in which the leader treats each follower differently but
equitably, providing all with individual attention. As a result, followers feel unique,
encouraged, and motivated (Nahavandi, 2003).
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the individuals affected by a decision were treated with dignity and respect (Bies &
Moag, 1986).
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction has been one of the most studied variables over the last
decades of organizational research. Interest in job satisfaction derives from its
relationships to other organizational outcomes including organizational
commitment, absenteeism, turnover and performance. Job satisfaction has been
defined and measured both as a global construct and as a concept with multiple
dimensions or facets (Lund, 2003). Job satisfaction implies a positive affect
resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences (Locke, 1976). As is the
case with all attitudes, job satisfaction is composed of cognitive, evaluative and
affective components. The evaluative component - an individual's global response
to the employing organization represents dislike vs. like for the organization. The
cognitive component - an individual's perceptions, beliefs, opinions and
expectations concerning the organization are the focus of his cognitions. Cognitions
in which the individual perceives that his expectations have been fulfilled,
generally lead to positive assessments. The affective component refers to the
feeling evoked by the organization. In general, positive affect results from
information, feedback, and situations that affirm or reinforce the individual's self
worth and self-concept, while negative affect is evoked by invalidating situations
(Bakhshi et al., 2009).
Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment can be thought of as the extent to which
employees are dedicated to their organization and are willing to work to its benefit,
and the prospect that they will maintain membership (Jex, 2002). Meyer and Allen
(1991) indicated three correlated but distinguished dimensions of organizational
commitment: affective, continuance and normative commitment. Affective
commitment represents an employee's emotional attachment, identification and
involvement in the organization. Continuance commitment is commitment based on
costs that an employee associates with leaving the organization, while normative
commitment represents employee's feeling of the obligation to stay within the
organization. Organizational commitment not only increases the success in a
certain role, but also encourages the individual to achieve many voluntary actions
necessary for organizational life and to reduce the absenteeism rate, turnover ratio
and enhances the organization productivity (Jernigan, Beggs, & Kohut, 2002).
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H7: Fairness perceptions and job satisfaction will mediate the relationships
between leadership styles and organizational commitment.
Proposed Model
Figure 1 depicts the hypothesized model linking leadership styles and
organizational commitment through fairness perceptions and job satisfaction.
The proposed model builds on and extends past research and theory by
incorporating the concepts of organizational justice and job satisfaction as
leadership mediators suggested by Lee (2000). The model includes a global
assessment of fairness perception as recommended by Mayer, Bardes, and Piccolo
(2008), job satisfaction as mediator between organizational justice and
organizational commitment suggested by Crow and collaborators (2012) and
assesses organizational commitment as a set of subordinates' outcomes as was the
case in Yang's (2012) work.
Figure 1. Proposed mediational model
Transactional
Transformational
Active
leadership
styles
Distributive
justice
Procedural
justice
Organizational
justice
Interactional
justice
Job
satisfaction
Organizational
commitment
Laissez-faire
Passive
management by
exceptions
Passive/avoiding
leadership
styles
Method
Participants
Participants (537) were recruited from 17 Croatian organizations that represent
a variety of different industries (e.g., manufacturing, public sector, service),
departments (e.g., production, accounting, personnel), and organizational levels
[e.g., ranging from employees on nonmanagerial position (48%), first-line
supervisors (43%) to middle managers (9%)]. The gender composition of the
514
sample was 34% male and 66% female. There were 52% employees up to 40 years
old. Most of the employees (73%) had more than five years of work experience.
Instruments
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQForm 5X short; Avolio and
Bass, 2010) was used to assess immediate supervisor's leadership style. The MLQ
was originally constructed for the assessment of leadership within the full-range
leadership model. In this study a total of 36 items was used, which measure
transformational leadership (i.e., idealized influence - attribution and behavior,
inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration),
transactional leadership (contingent reward and management by exception-active),
and passive-avoiding leadership styles or absence of leadership (laissez-faire and
management by exception-passive). Items were presented in Likert-type format
with a scale ranging from (1=never) to (5=almost always). Composite scores for the
two higher-order leadership factors (active and passive leadership) were computed
by summing across items, with higher scores indicating higher perceived style of
leadership. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the measures of leadership style were
.95 for transformational, .87 for transactional, .78 for laissez-faire, .69 for
management by exception, .96 for active and .84 for passive leadership style.
Organizational Justice Perception Questionnaire (ulumovi, 2005, adjusted
from Beugr & Baron, 2001; Colquitt, 2001; Cropanzano, Prehar, & Chen, 2002;
Niehoff & Moorman, 1993) was used to assess fairness perceptions. Questionnaire
contains 39 items divided into three subscales in order to measure three types of
organizational justice: procedural (15), interactional (13) and distributive (11).
Items were presented in Likert-type format with a scale ranging from (1=strongly
disagree) to (5=completely agree). Composite scores were computed by summing
across items for each subscale, with higher scores indicating higher perceived
organizational justice for each of three types. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the
three types of organizational justice were .93 for procedural justice, .94 for
interactional justice and .93 for distributive justice. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for
the overall justice was .97.
Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (Gregson, 1987), a 30-item questionnaire,
adjusted from Smith's, Kendall's, and Hulin's (1969) Job Descriptive Index (JDI),
was used to assess job satisfaction. Same as original JDI, it identifies five
dimensions of job satisfaction: work, pay, promotion, supervision, and coworkers
(six items for each of them). Items were presented in Likert-type format with a
scale ranging from (1=strongly disagree) to (5=completely agree). Composite
scores were computed by summing across items, with higher scores indicating
higher overall job satisfaction. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the overall job
satisfaction was .92.
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Results
Descriptive statistics
First, all variables were examined for the accuracy of data entry, missing
values, fit between their distributions and assumptions of multivariate analyses
(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). All assumptions are fulfilled, and all variables were
deemed normally distributed. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of all
measured variables are presented in Table 1.
As expected, the associations between active leadership styles and both
mediating variables were positive (rs=.71 for fairness perceptions and .30 for job
satisfaction, ps<.01), as well as the association between active leadership styles and
organizational commitment (r=.41, p<.01). As predicted, the association between
passive/avoiding leadership styles and organizational justice was negative (r=-.49,
p<.01), as well as the association between passive/avoiding leadership styles and
organizational commitment (r=-.26, p<.01). Association between passive/avoiding
leadership styles and job satisfaction was statistically insignificant (r=-.08, p>.05).
The correlation between fairness perceptions and job satisfaction was positive
(r=.39, p<.01). Finnaly, both mediating variables also yielded positive associations
with organizational commitment (rs=.39 for fairness perceptions and .29 for job
satisfaction, ps<.01).
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3
.93
.88
-
4
-.59
-.58
-.58
-
2
.99
-
M
SD
1
-
Correlations
6
7
-.48
.71
-.47
.70
-.47
.70
.91
-.49
.69
-.48
-.41
8
.54
.52
.54
-.35
-.35
-.29
.85
-
9
.71
.70
.69
-.52
-.51
-.44
.93
.71
-
10
.71
.69
.69
-.47
-.47
-.39
.91
.67
.81
-
11
.30
.29
.28
-.08
-.12
-.04
.39
.32
.41
.32
-
12
.41
.41
.38
-.26
-.30
-.19
.39
.37
.38
.33
.29
-
Descriptive Statistics
8.88 9.56 117.92 31.29 44.26 42.23 88.21 55.62
3.59 3.27 32.42 10.41 12.93 12.60 7.64 8.65
.78
.69
.97
.93
.93
.94
.92
.85
5
-.60
-.59
-.59
.93
-
Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, Cronbach alpha coefficients and Correlations of all variables measured
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TA - Transactional Leadership
TF - Transformational Leadership
LF - Laissez-faire Leadership
PMBE - Passive Management By Exceptions
IJ - Interactional Justice
PJ - Procedural Justice
DJ - Distributive Justice
Figure 2. Fairness Perceptions and Job Satisfaction as Mediators of the Relationship between Leadership Styles
and Organizational Commitment
Discussion
A model linking leadership styles with organizational commitment was
proposed and tested. Results of this research are consisted with the results of
previous research. Active leadership styles are positively linked and have both,
direct and indirect effects on organizational commitment. That means that one
mechanism by which leaders may be able to build commitment among their
subordinates is also through fair treatment, which leads to higher levels of their job
satisfaction. This finding is in line with the results of previous research. For
example, Ali, Babar, and Bangash (2011) found statistically significant, positive
correlations between transactional and transformational leadership styles and
employee's organizational commitment. Yang (2012) confirmed job satisfaction to
be a mediator between transformational leadership style and organizational
commitment. Walumbwa, Wang, Lawler, and Shi (2004) proved that
transformational leadership style was positively correlated with employee's job
satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Hamidifar (2009) cited a study examining the effectiveness of different
leadership styles and its impact on job satisfaction, which affirmed that active
leadership styles (transactional and transformational) were strongly correlated with
job satisfaction, while passive leadership styles were highly and negatively
correlated with the above mentioned work attitude. Results of the current study
give support to these findings only in the case of active leadership styles.
Passive/avoiding leadership styles do not have a negative impact either on
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